To my favorite son......Happy Birthday, Alan ..read more

On the way home from a particularly stressful morning...if you know, you know...we stopped to get the mail in town. Included was a small, utterly unexpected, out-of-the-clear-blue-sky envelope. It contained a package of Lion's Ear seeds and a lovely note, from someone who reads Northview, remembered my struggles last summer to get the gangly plant I purchased going, and wanted me to have a better go this summer. I was beyond delighted. It has been a challenging couple of months, and not getting easier anytime soon, and to have this wonderful surprise gift from a stranger meant a lot. Sh ..read more

  Thick muscular wings. Tall, gawky bodies, awkward, gangly, long, stilty legs, with fluffy brown and silver bodies like unshorn lambs. Look like loaves of bread sunning on the levee in the late afternoon. Delicate and graceful as leaves whirling in an eddy, they dance, skip, and float on the air, leaping over one another in an unworldly ballet, wonder on the water, out there in the pool. My dear friend Kris took me on an outing to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and Cayuga Lake State Park yesterday. We were both up long before o'dark thirty and left my house just before five. We w ..read more

  Because you know it's going to get us all after the time distortion that will come on Sunday. I set the bedroom clock an hour ahead earlier this week, to start getting ready for the misery that is the official Time Change. So...I got up at ten after four to walk Jill who was way off color yesterday. Happy to report she seems significantly improved this morning. Since I was up I went owling. In the backyard. In my bathrobe and crocs (hey, don't be all judgey now). A thick frost fell last night, not enough to freeze the water trickling off the hill after all the rain the last couple of d ..read more

  The sky was threatening. Gloomy, hung over with bulging yellow and grey clouds, pregnant with the promise of fear. She was alone with a grandkid and the dogs in the big gothic spooky house, and a storm was incoming.  She ventured out to the back porch to look east and south. A thick cable of blackness dangled from the sky like a snaking tentacle, looming close, and coming closer. She raced inside, screaming for the grandchild to get to the cellar. Grab a blanket. Be quick. Down the crumbling wooden stair they went, to sit at the bottom clutching the dull red sleeping bag the ..read more

  Are rearranging the furniture again. I don't know how they do it...or why But you can hear them at it. Early morning pills and bills Dogs for walking Wrens are talking. Just another winter day  Cold bright sunrise  Cold dull routine. But, wait, what light through yonder window breaks? Migration is starting... Yeah, it is! Yesterday a Wood Duck Tuesday a Great Blue Heron. Who knows what today might bring? Anticipation is the spice of everything! Five Bald Eagles in one spot ..read more

While not much else is going right, birding has been awesome lately. Finding Short-eared Owls has been one great treat, but today it was Bald Eagles. Short-eared Owl There was one sitting on a log in the pool at the boat launch today. Although I tried for a photo, something unseen blew all the ducks off the Schoharie and spooked him too, just as I aimed. He flew over to the tree at the confluence, where eagles often perch. Then he landed by the pool and strutted around for a bit. I think he may have left prey near the log, as his crop looked full. Back to the tree he went.&n ..read more

  Some weeks ago, on a section of road we call "Raptor Row" because it is a great spot to find several species of hawks and owls, we passed a road-killed White-tailed Deer. It was a big one, fresh and mostly intact. Soon it looked much different  Many creatures had their way with it. Friends reported Bald Eagles stopping by to feast. Coyote tracks surrounded it on many occasions and something dragged it from the roadside out into the surrounding fields. We saw Red-tailed Hawks and the corvids, jay, crow, and raven, frequenting the field. A pair of Rough-legged Hawks started hanging ..read more

Drainage holes bored with a screw setter Hinged lid The wait begins  An empty kitty litter jug. Germination Now, if only they don't damp off on me ..read more

  Yesterday I found myself browning chopped up sweet Italian sausage, ground venison, celery, and homegrown garlic on the small burner on the stove, in a bath of butter and herbs. In the oven a tired head of cabbage was roasting, coated in dark, rich, olive oil, sprinkled with everything from fennel to Italian seasoning, with a bit more butter on top. The basic recipe was not my idea. The methods and flavorings were. See, I work under Becky now, as a sous chef. She works under the big yellow sign down in the village so she has no time. I have nothing but. When she got home she assembled ..read more